Free I Hated to Do It: Stories of a Life by Donald C. Farber Page A

Trying
, which had a book by Abe Burrows. The musical starred a saucy young kid, Bobby Morse, who recently has been seen a lot on the hugely successful TV series
Mad Men
, in which he is and now plays a gruff little old man. That series helped further the career of Jon Hamm, a very talented performer. Life goes on.
    It was customary for me to ask at the end of my session at The New School if anyone wanted to ride uptown with me in a cab. About six weeks into one of the sessions, a young man said, “Don, I will go uptown with you.” I accompanied him down in the elevator and there was a big limo waiting there with a license plate that said just the word “NINE.” I then realized that this guy, Kenny Greenblatt, had produced the play
Nine
, and he was taking my class together with his wife.
    Of course, I asked, “For goodness sakes, Kenny, why would you be taking my class?” He replied, “I won two Tony Awards, and each time when I was walking up to get the award, I said to myself, I really don’t know a thing about this business.” We became friendly. The class was great.
    Zia Mohyeddin
    When Zia came to our house to sign the sublease on the apartment of Tamara Geva and we sat up talking into the middle of the night, we learned a lot about Zia, a poor Pakistani young man who came to England and got a job washing dishes to get enough money to study at RAMDA, the Royal Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
    As fate would have it, Zia had starred in a production at Oxford of a play called
The Guide
, based on a story of the Indian author, R.K. Narayan, and the eminent critic Kenneth Tynan wrote a review praising Zia. In
The Observer
in London dated Sunday March 12, 1961, Tynan wrote of Zia’s performance:
    “…I have seldom been exposed to such intensity of feeling, coupled with such clarity of utterance, speed of delivery and precision of gesture. Physically Mr. Mohyeddin is no Teuton, but he would have no trouble playing Mediterraneans, in whom Shakespeare abounds; there lies my hint, and I hope someone takes it up.”
    Someone did take the hint: the Old Vic engaged Zia to play Romeo opposite Dorothy Tutin as Juliet. What an opportunity for this unknown poor Pakistani actor to play opposite the most beautiful, classic actress in England at that time.
    In order to be available to play the part, Zia had to go to his friend David Lean, who had cast Zia in the movie that he would be directing,
Lawrence of Arabia
. David Lean was very kind to Zia and said that he would move him to a shorter role, casting him as the person who teaches Peter Sellers how to ride a camel at the beginning of the film so that he could play Romeo. David Lean then recast the other part that Zia would have played.
    Things did not go so well in the rehearsal of Romeo. Zia and the director, Peter Hall, had an argument, and Zia asked a question you never ask a director if you are a performer: he asked Peter Hall if he should quit. The answer was yes, and Brian Murray played the part of Romeo opposite Dorothy Tutin for the opening and that run of the play. Opening night, Zia was in Rome alone, or maybe not alone, but not very happy. Zia’s theatrical career at this time was not atypical. That’s showbiz!
    Oh, yes, I didn’t tell you that the part Zia gave up in the movie
Lawrence of Arabia
went to another unknown, a guy by the name of Omar Sharif. That’s showbiz; no one or almost no one has heard of Zia Mohyeddin, and Omar Sharif became a huge star, all resulting from his playing the part that Zia gave up so that he could star as Romeo, which didn’t happen. Omar Sharif starred in
Doctor Zhivago
,
Funny Girl
, and a whole lot of other major roles during his lifetime. So we became friendly with Zia and his wife, Sherry. We played a lot of bridge with them, ate a lot of Pakistani food with them, helped them find places to live in New York City.
    Zia and I were very close and he would just borrow or take my Gucci ties and leave me a Madras tie in its